


Five Sets of Twenty

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-30
Updated: 2005-12-30
Packaged: 2019-01-19 18:43:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12415800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: It's five thirty five in the morning. It's all retribution personified.





	Five Sets of Twenty

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**_A/N: Yes well...just read it, please :)_ **

**_-h_ **

Five Sets of Twenty

It’s five thirty five in the morning and there’s a new water stain on the ceiling.

It looks like retribution begot by defeated glory and derelict endings with ragged edges. The words “fuck life”� slither against the walls of her mind and roll around her cheeks and under her tongue. They melt onto her lips and sink back into her mouth and pool at the back of her throat. She swallows them because the stain would hear her and tell them she was broken and they were not.

It’s five thirty five in the morning and the rat living behind the wall in the corner scratches its musings in the soggy insulation of the room.

It sounds like muted whispers in musty dungeons and swishing black cloaks whipping around corners. It sounds like breath clinging to the inside of white masks and a snake weaving between dozens of booted feet. It’s a circle of dead leaves in a cold graveyard. The words “yes Master”� march rhythmically through her mind and travel through the roots of her teeth and into the muscles of her lips to stand erect there obediently. She converts them into a dry cough because he’s gone and she’s fast approaching.

It’s five thirty five in the morning and there’s a draft creeping through the cracks in the window pane and filling her mouth with frozen nails.

It tastes like green jets of light and metallic blood. It tastes like frozen mercury and pale fingers gripped around dragonstring embedded in smooth cherry. The words “get rid of them”� hiss through her mind and prick at the backs of her eyes. They slide along her eyelids and cling to the capillaries of her cheeks and she changes them into a flush of cold and a shiver down her skeleton because they once brought anticipation spiraling through her body.

It’s five thirty five in the morning and her fingers are frozen in a tight grip around the dirty woolen blanket across her shoulders.

It feels like heavy cloaks soaked with disdain and dirty gauze clung to wounds. It feels like revenge gone wrong and cleansing defeated. The word “purify”� smashes through her head and beats on the inside of her skull in a fury. It screams through her throat all the way to her stomach and she retches because she knows she’s all that is left.

It’s five thirty five in the morning and she’s sitting on a broken and rotting mattress in a room of wretched glory.

It smells like death. It smells like heavy burning air and billowing smoke rising from doused ruins. It smells like rain on final days and blood mixed with dust in the crevices of cobblestone streets. It smells like tailored coattails hanging from a proud boy. Four words cling to her mouth like a thousand spiders. They spin a delicate web between her lips and when she lets out a trembling breath it breaks free almost silently and falls to the floor in fluttering concavity. 

“Fuck you, my Draco.”� She whispers them because she’s hung on for too long and he’s dragged her down with him.

The draft creeps up her side and breathes a chuckle into her ear. “Ah no, Pansy,”� he says, “That’s _your_ job, remember?”� Cold fingers wrap around her throat and freeze the seconds into her skin. He is laughing into her lungs. 

It’s five thirty six in the morning and she’s entered hell in five sets of twenty.

**_A/N: So...creepy and morbid. But there you go._ **

**_Review, loo-hoos!_ **

**_-h_ **


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